JEFF EDELSTEIN: NJ Gov. Chris Christie should take over the Trenton Water Works

As a teenager in high school, I went through a what I describe as my “jean jacket phase.” You know, only the dirtbags wore jean jackets, and I wore mine with pride. I drank booze. I smoked some light drugs. I engaged in some moderate theft. I wasn’t a “bad” kid, really, but I certainly wasn’t to be trusted. Especially with important things.

As a result, my parents rarely left my five-years-younger brother home alone with me. I used to be allowed to babysit him to make a few extra bucks, but by the time I was 15, 16? No more. Mom and Dad still loved me, I suppose, but they weren’t stupid: They weren’t going to leave their most precious commodity — my sweet, innocent, wet-behind-the-ears brother — in my care.

(Ready for the metaphor stretch? Hold on.)

The city of Trenton is going through what can only be described as a very, very, very, very, very bad phase. A “jean jacket” phase, if you will. The mayor is under federal indictment and it’s an not exactly an open secret that his management of the city has been a slightly short of sterling. The mayor (and others in the administration) are probably not (super) bad guys in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t think anyone wants Mack or his cronies in charge of important things.

As a result, taxpaying citizens of Hamilton, Ewing, Hopewell and Lawrence, aren’t exactly thrilled right now knowing their most precious commodity — fresh drinking water from the Trenton Water Works — is being run by an administration that, at first blush (and second, and third, and fourth) seems to be a few boats short of an armada.

“I call on the state of New Jersey to take over the operation of the utility to help restore safety and confidence in the system,” Hamilton Mayor Kelly Yaede said the other day, in light higher-than-normal levels of total trihalomethanes (TTHM, and whatever that is) being found in the water.

According to Joe McIntyre — the General Superintendent of the Sewer Utility, who spoke to Trenton city council last week — the higher levels of TTHM was not an emergency, everything is fine, nothing to see here. And I don’t really doubt that. I’m willing to believe the people in charge of the day-to-day of the Trenton Water Works are solid professionals who do a good job.

But, still, I’m with Yaede. It’s high time the state — specifically, the Department of Environmental Protection — takes over the operation of the Trenton Water Works.

Yaede’s predecessor, John Bencivengo, also had the same idea back in 2010, writing a letter to Gov. Chris Christie, begging him to take control of the Water Works, as things back then weren’t any better. Quick refresher: Muscles Davis, brown water, boil alerts.

Basically, just like I wasn’t to be trusted with my brother, it seems kind of foolish and almost downright dangerous to trust our drinking water with the Mack administration.

This is drinking water, folks. Not to be trifled with. A reasonable expectation in America, 2013 is to not have to worry about what’s coming out of the tap.

But if your water is coming from the Trenton Water Works, it seems like a reasonable expectation to be worried.

I’m not advocating the state seize the pipes and any monies the city manages to squeeze out of the operation, but I am advocating the state get involved of the day-to-day management of the plant until such time it’s clear it’s being operated and managed by the right personnel.

Again — and to repeat — I like to think the people who actually work at the plant know what they’re doing. It’s the bosses up the chain of command, right to the mayor’s desk, that have me concerned.